TRAINING
Above: Dudley Weeks and Pamela Aall (center) with representatives of international and local NGOs working in Bosnia.
For the field staff of local and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the conflicts needing resolution in the country extend far beyond the war's legacy of hatred and distrust. Each day's efforts present the NGOs with new conflicts needing resolution, many of them reflecting the challenges of coordination among the complex, multiple layers of individuals, organizations, and governments involved in the post-war reconstruction and reconciliation efforts. To address these problems and facilitate implementation of the Dayton accords, the U.S. Institute of Peace organized two conflict resolution skills training sessions held May 4-11 for local and international NGO staff stationed in Sarajevo. Altogether 54 field staff representing 26 organizations attended the trainings.
"Bosnia is not only recovering from war, but is in the middle of a political and economic transition," says Pamela Aall, deputy director of the Education and Training Program. She and Eileen Babbitt, director of the program, organized the logistics of the training in the United States, while Aall oversaw the training in Bosnia. "When you're dealing with local NGOs in Bosnia," notes Aall, "you're dealing with entities that aren't completely sure what their role can or ought to be. Civil society is new to them."
"The participants were primarily local," Aall says. "We selected them because they deal directly with groups in trauma: children in schools and people in the communities. Some of them are in conflict among themselves because of the stress they are operating under."
Dudley Weeks, a conflict resolution training specialist and director of the Partnership Life Skills Center of Washington, D.C., conducted the training sessions on contract to the Institute. The training was held in collaboration with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), an NGO umbrella organization headquartered in Geneva with offices in Sarajevo. James Kelly, CRS country director, Marko Lovrekovic, CRS staff, and Livia Mimica, ICVA staff, organized the on-site arrangements for the training, and members of their staffs served as translators. Studio 99, a private television station in Sarajevo, featured the training on its news broadcast.
Right: NGO field staff in Sarajevo practice conflict resolution skills at the Institute's training session.
Dudley Weeks based his training on a series of negotiating
skills that, he says, can be adapted to handle any situation
(described in detail in his book, The Eight Essential Steps
To Conflict Resolution, Tarcher/Putnam-Berkley, 1992). The
training was divided into two three-day sessions, with the
first day devoted to an overview of the skills. On the
second and third days participants engaged in simulations of
conflict situations drawn in part from their own
experiences. They applied the conflict resolution skills in
role play exercises where they were parties to hypothetical
conflicts and where they mediated between two parties in
conflict.
Participants said in their evaluations of the training program that they looked forward to using their new skills not only in their work, but in their personal lives as well. "I will be using these skills all the time," wrote one participant. "I'll use these skills in the field working with residents and officials in the municipal government, but I'll also use them with my colleagues," wrote another.
The Institute is exploring the feasibility of offering additional conflict resolution skills training sessions in Bosnia. These might include a repeat of the basic program, a longer and more intensive program for those who have already been exposed to conflict resolution skills, a program that would train NGO staff to become trainers themselves, or offering the training in other cities such as Tuzla and Mostar.
"The country is coming alive again," Aall says. "The trees are blooming, the cafes are full, the people are swarming in the streets. But people say there's a lot of work to be done if the peace is to hold."
© 1996 United States Insitute of Peace